1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to the processing and production of materials. More particularly, the invention relates to the processing of materials where a larger block of material must be broken down into sized pieces. Specifically, this invention relates to machinery that is used to quench and break down a large block of hot material into sized pieces and for distributing those sized materials.
2. Background Information
There are numerous industries that require larger pieces of material be processed to create smaller or sized pieces. For example, in the power generation and iron processing industries, it is desirable to use coke as a fuel. One type of coke is called petroleum coke or pet coke and is produced as a byproduct of crude oil refining. Pet coke is produced by placing the residual fuel oil from the crude oil refining process into a drum, known as a coker, and then applying heat and pressure thereto. The heat and pressure cause the gases and liquids to separate from the residual fuel oil, thereby forming a large block of solid material or coke within the drum. The drum's bottom flange is opened and high pressure water jets are used to cut the solidified coke from the drum's interior. The solidified coke, which can still be in the range of 800 degrees Fahrenheit in temperature, is dropped into a pit, or weir, for quenching, cooling and storage. Ultimately, a front end loader or some mechanical device is used to reclaim the coke by lifting the coke out of the weir thereof onto a conveying device to transfer and transport the coke to a remote crusher that breaks the larger coke pieces into smaller sized manageable ones. All of these steps are labor intensive, hazardous and time consuming. Every year the coke production industry spends large amount of dollars to operate the equipment needed to remove coke from the cokers, dump the coke into weirs for quenching and cooling, removing it therefrom and delivering the same to crushers and screening stations to break the large block of coke into smaller sized pieces.
There are numerous other applications and industries in which it is desirable to break down a large block of hot material into sized pieces.
There is therefore a need in the art for an improved device for quenching, crushing and distributing sized material.